E

WO/GA/54/6 ORIGINAL: ENGLISH DATE: JULY 2, 2021

WIPO General Assembly

Fifty-Fourth (25th Ordinary) Session Geneva, October 4 to 8, 2021

TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE AND COOPERATION REGARDING THE LAW TREATY (PLT)

Document prepared by the Secretariat

1. In its Agreed Statements regarding the Patent Law Treaty and the Regulations under the Patent Law Treaty, the Diplomatic Conference for the Adoption of the Patent Law Treaty (PLT), held in Geneva from May 11 to June 2, 2000, requested the General Assembly of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the Contracting Parties to provide the developing and least developed countries (LDCs) and countries in transition with additional technical assistance to meet their obligations under that Treaty, with a view to facilitating the implementation of Rule 8(1)(a) of the PLT.1 Specifically, the Diplomatic Conference requests the WIPO General Assembly to monitor and evaluate the progress of such cooperation at every ordinary session.

2. Based on the said Agreed Statements, the Secretariat has regularly submitted to the WIPO General Assembly information on the relevant technical assistance and cooperation activities, carried out by the WIPO Secretariat, to facilitate filing of communications in electronic form. The relevant activities for the period from June 2019 to May 2021 are included in Annex I to this document. A list of the PLT Contracting Parties, as of May 2021, is contained in Annex II, for information purposes.

1 Item 4 of the Agreed Statements regarding the Patent Law Treaty and the Regulations under the Patent Law Treaty. WO/GA/54/6 page 2

3. In addition, “industrialized market economy countries” referred to in paragraph 3, item 4 of the Agreed Statements are invited to provide information as set forth in that paragraph to the WIPO General Assembly so that it could monitor and evaluate the progress of the cooperation.

4. The WIPO General Assembly is invited to take note of the information on “Technical Assistance and Cooperation regarding the Patent Law Treaty (PLT)” (document WO/GA/54/6).

[Annexes follow]

WO/GA/54/6 ANNEX I

TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE AND COOPERATION FOR DEVELOPING AND LEAST DEVELOPED COUNTRIES (LDCs) AND COUNTRIES IN TRANSITION TO FACILITATE THE IMPLEMENTATION OF RULE 8(1)(A) OF THE PATENT LAW TREATY (PLT) FOR THE PERIOD FROM JUNE 2019 TO MAY 2021

1. From June 2019 to May 2021, the WIPO Secretariat provided technical assistance and cooperation to developing and least developed countries (LDCs) and countries in transition2 to facilitate the implementation of Rule 8(1)(a) of the Patent Law Treat (PLT), i.e., facilitating the filing of electronic communications in those countries, with respect to the following areas: (a) technical infrastructure of national and regional IP Offices; and (b) electronic communications under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT).

2. The activities were aligned with the Development Agenda recommendations aiming at strengthening institutional and technical infrastructure of IP offices and institutions.3

A. TECHNICAL INFRASTRUCTURE OF NATIONAL AND REGIONAL INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OFFICES

3. During the reporting period, the Secretariat continued to support enhancement of national and regional IP Offices’ IP business systems so as to help them develop digital registries for IP management and deliver fully online services to their stakeholders. A key focus of the Program for the current biennium is to support the digital transformation of IP Offices by upgrading the WIPO IP Office Suite of applications (WIPO File, WIPO Publish and IPAS) to modern and fully-functional technologies. More information is available on the website of WIPO’s technical assistance program for IP Offices at: http://www.wipo.int/global_ip/en/activities/technicalassistance/.

4. The technical assistance and cooperation provided include technical consultancy; business needs assessment; project scoping and planning; business process analysis; ongoing development and deployment of customized business systems solutions for the administration of IP rights and for the exchange of priority documents, and of search and examination results; establishment of IP databases; assistance with digitization of IP records and preparation of data for online publications and electronic data exchange; training and knowledge transfer to staff of IP institutions; and support for the systems provided by WIPO. The assistance takes into account WIPO Standards on IP data and information where appropriate. On-site training, mentoring and regional training workshops account for a significant portion of the Secretariat’s activities and are critical in achieving the desired results.

5. To date, 90 IPOs from developing countries, LDCs and countries in transition in all regions are actively using WIPO Business Solutions for the administration of their IP rights, in which WIPO Standards are integrated.

2 The technical assistance and cooperation was provided both to PLT members and to countries that are not yet members, independently of whether or not they were in the process of acceding to, or ratifying, the PLT. 3 See, in particular, Recommendations 10 and 24 of the WIPO Development Agenda. WO/GA/54/6 Annex I, page 2

B. ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS UNDER THE PATENT COOPERATION TREATY (PCT)

6. Given the strong relationship between the PLT and the PCT, the following developments during the reporting period in the context of the PCT should be noted.

7. The International Bureau (IB) has continued to develop and deploy the ePCT system. There are now over 80,000 registered users from over 200 different countries using ePCT. The system is also open to national/regional Offices, which can now access the service in their roles as receiving Office (RO), International Searching Authority (ISA) and International Preliminary Examining Authority (IPEA) as well as designated Office (DO). To date, 96 IP Offices are using these additional services.

8. In addition, the web based filing solution, ePCT-Filing, which is intended to supersede PCT-SAFE and provides all offices with the ability to offer an electronic filing solution to applicants, is accepted by 72 ROs (as of April 1, 2021). The ePCT user interface is available in all languages of international publication under the PCT: English, Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

9. Furthermore, the IB offers fully hosted ePCT RO services compatible with the ePCT-Filing web filing solution. These services are available to offices of all Member States, which do not have the capacity or desire to develop, operate and maintain local IT infrastructure for RO operations, allowing them to offer their applicants the same level of service as that enjoyed at highly automated offices. Participating offices only require a standard web browser and Internet connection (plus scanner for handling documents filed on paper). The IB currently hosts ePCT servers for a number of ROs, including the Offices of Algeria, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Georgia, India, Indonesia, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Jordan, Kenya, , Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Nicaragua, , Panama, Peru, the Philippines, Qatar, the Republic of , the Russian Federation, , , Singapore, South Africa, Sudan, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, , Viet Nam, as well as the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization and the Eurasian Patent Office.

10. In addition to the services listed above, WIPO offers assistance to Offices in their preparations for ePCT services to enter into effect. This includes technical assistance, e.g., providing test environments to the RO in order to test the end-to-end filing process, transmittal of record copy packages to the IB, as well as legal and procedural assistance. Various ePCT features have been introduced or improved to make the PCT procedures more convenient. In September 2019, the launch of the new WIPO IP Portal has resulted in a number of changes to ePCT. Logging in with a single WIPO account gives access to all of the WIPO online IP services that have been integrated in the portal, including ePCT.

11. Following the emergence of more efficient and accessible alternatives, transitional activities have been carried out for three legacy services that had been reported in document WO/GA/43/15. In particular, with ePCT superseding PCT-SAFE as the IB’s solution for electronic filing under the PCT, the number of ROs that accept electronic filings under the PCT using PCT-SAFE will reduce from 27 in 2013 to 6 as of July 1, 2021. Nevertheless, updated versions of the PCT-SAFE software have continued to be released in a timely manner in order to support the ongoing evolution of the legal and procedural framework of the PCT, such as various PCT Rule changes.

[Annex II follows] WO/GA/54/6 ANNEX II

Patent Law Treaty1 (Geneva, 2000) Status on May 2021

State Date on which State became party to the Patent Law Treaty

Albania May 17, 2010 June 25, 2019 September 17, 2013 March 16, 2009 December 15, 2005 October 21, 2016 May 9, 2012 October 30, 2019 April 28, 2005 Democratic People’s Republic of Korea August 22, 2018 April 28, 2005 April 28, 2005 March 6, 2006 January 5, 2010 March 12, 2008 May 27, 2012 June 11, 2016 Kazakhstan2 October 19, 2011 Kyrgyzstan April 28, 2005 June 12, 2010 January 4, 2017 December 18, 2009 February 3, 2012 March 9, 2012 December 27, 2010 April 28, 2005 April 22, 2010 Oman October 16, 2007 Republic of Moldova April 28, 2005 April 28, 2005 Russian Federation2 August 12, 2009 Saudi Arabia August 3, 2013 Serbia August 20, 2010 April 28, 2005 April 28, 2005 Spain November 6, 2013 December 27, 2007 July 1, 2008 July 19, 2021 April 28, 2005 United Kingdom3 March 22, 2006 United States of America2 December 18, 2013 Uzbekistan July 19, 2006

(Total: 43 States)

[End of Annex II and of document]

1 Entered into force on April 28, 2005. 2 With the reservation under Article 23(1). 3 Ratification in respect of the of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the .